Avalon Cinema For Sale

The long-closed Avalon Cinema is finally for sale.  For years people have said the 1930s structure was an eyesore that should be razed.

Thankfully it has avoided the fate of so many other fine buildings.  The property at 4225 S. Kingshighway is listed at $1,000,000 by Bjaye Greer of Realty Exchange. The owner is finally convinced to sell:

Inside the pitch-black carcass of the Avalon Cinema, the windows are boarded up and the electricity has been shut off since it closed its doors on South Kingshighway Boulevard nine years ago. The faint sound of dripping water is audible, and junk lies strewn across the floors of the building — ruined reels of film, broken projector parts, a shopping cart and a filthy mattress.

Amid the squalor, the building’s owner, Greg Tsevis, navigates the darkened stairs and crawl spaces with the ease afforded by 30 years of familiarity, oblivious to the ruin around him.  (Riverfront Times July 2007)

The building includes land with 200 feet of frontage along South Kingshighway – a substantial length.

The West face of South Kingshighway at Chippewa (map link) is mostly intact.  The parking lot adjacent to the Avalon was there in a 1958 photograph.

I’d like to see a new building be built adjacent to the Avalon with street-level retail, offices and/or residential units and structured parking.  Basically it would be structured parking at the rear of the site with a thin face at the street.  I haven’t done a proforma to see how the numbers work out.  My focus is to create a nice wall of building fronts along the sidewalk line so that the area is more connected and friendly to pedestrians.

The garage on Delmar (left above), across from the Tivoli Theater, still looks like a garage with the open second floor.  But I’d take it on South Kingshighway next to the Avalon as a compromise to having occupied space at the front on the 2nd level.  A 3rd floor would be excellent and in keeping with nearby buildings.

The first step that needs to be taken is to develop a form-based zoning code for the area that would guide future development.   This would give developers an assurance that any adjacent development would also take on an urban form.

Further Reading

• Built St. Louis
• STL Rising

– Steve Patterson

Mr. Smith Goes to Leavenworth

Five years ago Jeff Smith came in second place out of 10 candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. Congress.  He was a rising star.  So much so a documentary was made about that campaign for Congress.  The film, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington, Anymore?, was released in 2006:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6x_I6Bm8gE

In 2006 Smith was elected to the Missouri State Senate in another crowded election.

But it turns out he had knowledge of  a campaign violation from the 2004 Congressional campaign .  He lied twice about his knowledge of the violation.  From his statement issued yesterday as he resigned his seat:

During my 2004 Congressional race, I became aware of an independent effort to produce two mailers to benefit my campaign. Federal campaign finance law prohibits specific coordination between a campaign and anyone preparing an independent expenditure.

When the independent operator requested funding, I authorized a close friend to raise money for the effort, and my press secretary provided public information about my opponent’s voting record. I withheld my knowledge of these facts during the Federal Election Commission’s 2004 investigation, misleading investigators and filing a false affidavit.  (Source)

The lie is often worse than the deed.  Just ask Martha Stewart.

Jeff Smith represented the 4th District in the Missouri Senate (green below):

I live in the 5th District, represented by Robin Wright-Jones who was elected in 2008, replacing Maida Coleman who had been term limited out of office.  So Jeff Smith was not my Senator.  Still, knowing him, I’m disappointed.

Will he go to Leavenworth?  Probably not, but it made for a good headline.  Smith will likely spend some time in a white collar prison.  We will know after he and others are sentenced on November 10, 2009.

The FBI press release has all the facts in a no-nonsense way you’d expect from the FBI.

– Steve Patterson

National Trust Opposes SLAPP Suit Against Two St. Louis Residents

A lawsuit against two downtown St. Louis residents has been ongoing now in excess of four years.  Recently (8/11/09) another St. Louis resident posted a question on the Facebook page of The National Trust for Historic Preservation:

Could you please ask your redevelopment corporation to drop the lawsuit against the two St. Louis citizens who filed suit to save the 1896 Century Building?

Nine days later (8/20/09) the National Trust for Historic Preservation posted the following response:

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is not a party to this litigation and has no control over it. Our subsidiary investment arm holds only a .01% stake in the project, and all authority to pursue litigation of this type lies in the limited partnership’s general partner alone. We have urged that party to reconsider their actions, but to date they have not heeded our request. We believe there are ways to learn from the Century Building controversy and advance the cause of historic preservation and community revitalization. This lawsuit is not the way to achieve those goals.

Agreed, this lawsuit is not about advancing anything other than instilling fear in the public so they won’t challenge the status quo, such as awarding a historic building to a connected developer without putting the building out for proposals.

The trial date is currently set for September 14, 2009.  The plaintiffs have asked for yet another delay.  Sorry good ole boys, no matter how long you delay your case won’t get any better.

– Steve Patterson

The Value of Walkable Neighborhoods

As a real estate agent I often hear people say they’d live in the city but they get more house for the money in the exurbs.  True enough, if you count number of rooms (or garage spaces), square footage and so on you do get more on the edge.  They have to offer something to get people out there. The more is more driving.

With home prices bottoming out in many areas nationally, people are looking for any way to get more for their homes. For some, there is a ray of hope….walkability. A new study says that if you want more dough for your house (tell us if anyone says no) it helps to be in a walkable neighborhood.

That’s the conclusion of the analysis from CEOs for Cities that reveals that homes in more walkable neighborhoods are worth more than similar homes in less-walkable neighborhoods.

The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities” by Joseph Cortright, analyzed data from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.

Key findings include:

• In 13 out of 15 metro areas studied, higher levels of walkability were directly linked to higher home values.
• In the typical metropolitan area, a one point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000. Gains were larger in denser, urban areas and smaller in less dense markets.
• In the typical areas studied, the premium commanded for neighborhoods with above-average Walk Scores ranged from about $4,000 to $34,000.

(source | study-PDF)

To many of us this is common sense.  I’m willing to pay more or at least make trade offs to be in an environment where walking is an option.  Walkable inner-ring suburbs have the same relationship as the core, less house but more walkability.  You could not pay me enough money to live in the fanciest McMansion in a drivable (non-walkable) area.

Schools, ah yes, schools.  Many correctly point out that older districts suck when it comes to test scores.  Well, the sucking sound is caused by caring parents who should be contributing money & their time to established districts rather than continually creating new edge school districts.  There is value in your child having classmates from different economic classes.  The ability of your chilld to learn to walk to the store, alone, to get a loaf of bread cannot be traded for a media room.

I’m not suggesting everyone needs to live downtown.  Single family detached with a yard and everything between that and my loft is fine.  But understand that walkability adds value to homes.  By buying a home in a drivable area you are saying you don’t value walkability.  At least not enough to pay for it.

– Steve Patterson

A Small Pedestrian Victory

Friday night last week I was out later than usual.  After getting a veggie hot dog from Sam at Hot City Franks at 13th & Washington I started to head home.  At 16th I ran into a friend who was walking home to 10th Street.  It was around 11:45pm so I decided to escort her home.

On 10th Street at St. Charles Street I spotted this Chevy in front of a fire hydrant. While that is upsetting I was more upset by this car on St. Charles Street:

This Dodge was parked in the crosswalk and blocking the ADA curb cut.  I’ve blogged about cars blocking this ramp before.  It was now midnight and I call the police non-emergency number.  They had bigger issues to deal with on a Friday night.  As I sit there I realize that drivers may not realize the crosswalk exists.  The curb is faded yellow and the crosswalk is unmarked.

So from this spot at 12:05am I email the above photo to a trio of city officials to get some resolution.  I sent it to David Newburger, Commissioner on the Disabled, Todd Waeltermann, Director of Streets and Phyllis Young, Alderman for this ward (7th).  Newburger & Waeltermann both replied Saturday morning with Young replying on Monday morning.

Last night, less than a week later I pass by the same intersection and I’m pleased to see my requested crosswalk stripes.  Around the corner is a “no parking here to corner” sign as well.  So kudos to David Newburger, Phyllis Young and especially Todd Waeltermann for getting my requested solution completed.

Now I need to get this trio onto the problem one block West at 11th Street:

At this intersection a block away the crosswalk has two issues.  1) like the other it is not marked and 2) the near curb lacks a curb cut, eliminating the East side of 11th as a viable route for me.

I think to get action it is always a good idea to report a problem to more than one person.  In this case the three all knew the other two were aware of the same problem.  Many would have placed a phone call to the Alderman during the week but I think by going directly to the persons involved in a solution but making the elected representative aware helped speed up the fix.  Had I placed a phone call to Phyllis Young we probably would have played phone tag a few times, it would have been hard to verbalize the issue and then she would have had to turn around and do the same with others.  So before you pick up the telephone to contact your Alderman about a problem try contacting the department and/or Citizens Service Bureau by email, preferably with a picture of the problem.  Copy the appropriate Alderman on the correspondence so they are aware of the issue and request for service but the responsibility for action falls to a city staff person.

– Steve Patterson